Gateway Drug
by TopazStars
Summary: Killer Frost has been locked away for long enough now. She's desperate for freedom, so close she can almost taste it. It only takes one stolen moment, one little secret, and one chance encounter to get her hooked on the real world.


Killer Frost sighed somewhere within the recesses of Caitlin's mind. The brunette was asleep, in the comfort of her warm bed, while her other half fought off the temptations of sleep. With the scientists eyes closed, Frost sat in the dark, watching dreams flicker by.

It was strange, being so alone. Isolated, unless Caity was awake or able to talk. She'd created a small world for herself, desperate for something to do, or she'd die of boredom.

When she had first appeared, she was merely a voice in Caitlin's mind. Now she had given herself a physical form, a room to reside in when no one needed her. It was meek, and drab. A cold, grey room with a carpet of snow. A tv sat opposite to her, the screen she would look through to see the world outside. With the scientist's eyes shut, however, there was nothing but the soft droning of static.

In the pitch black space, an image flickered. A shard from the beginnings of a dream. Another clip flashes before Frost's cold, blue eyes, and lights up the room. It's bright. It's blinding. And the roaring noise that accompanies it is like that of a vicious hurricane.

The flashes of Caity's fantasies that collide with Frost's mind are pelting her like hunks of bone-breaking hail, like a broken DVD cutting in and out, and she sees billowing clouds. She sees the cityscape, and she sees a cyclone in the sky.

She squints against the harsh vision, this unexpected crack in the wall that separates her and Caitlin seeming to grow. This wasn't a dream. This was a nightmare. And now, in the center of all the chaos, through the world crumbling before her very eyes, she sees a man. He's on fire, and he's following a flash of lighting up through the vortex. A black hole, or a breach, she realizes, is about to consume them both as the nightmare continues to chip away at the barrier.

Obviously, the lighting is Barry. She finds herself worrying for him, even though she knows this isn't real. Though, somewhere inside of her, she knows this happened in the past. The barrier between their emotions must be fraying as well, because for some reason, she feels terror like never before. Her heart stops as the flaming man disappears, the bright fire extinguished.

No, this isn't her memory. This isn't her experience. And while that man may have been important to Caity, he means nothing to Killer Frost.

The mutant shuts her eyes tight, turning away from the vision, just as someone she _does_ recognize falls from the sky. Martin Stein. The second half of Firestorm.

She lets her mind touch Caity's now, reaching into her thoughts like a winter breeze. She can't take this horror any longer. Slowly, but surely, the vortex disappears, replaced by gently falling snow. The cityscape melts away into a forest of frost-covered trees, and the sound of destruction has faded into a whisper of reindeer bells. Caitlin's mind is calmed now, and Frost takes a deep breath. Fixing these recurring nightmares is no easy feat.

As she envisions it, ice begins to patch up the hole that looks into Caitlin's mind. It's glassy, a cold blue, and it twinkles back at her before the room fades back to inky black. Once again, she's alone. The barrier between them is restored, and she gets to work patching the hole in her heart, until Caitlin's emotions untangle from hers as well.

Isolation. Loneliness. Silence. This is her world once again. Sometimes she hates it. Sometimes she feels like tearing out her hair, scratching at her skin, and screaming into the void, searching for _something_. _Anything_. Or maybe... _anyone_ for just a glimmer of comfort. She yearns for companionship on these sleepless nights, when the sun sets and darkness seems to last for eternity. When Caitlin doesn't reply and Frost feels as though she's stuck in a realm between reality and somewhere else... like a ghost... there, but destined to be just out of humanities reach. Always on the other side of a window, looking in on a world that she longs to be a part of.

Sometimes she asks herself why. Why is it that Caitlin always got the spotlight, while she was shunned to the dark and quiet outskirts of their shared mind? Who decided that the scientist got to roam freely through life, and her colder half was merely a weapon in her shadow. A _tool_ to be used and then put away when she wasn't needed. It was fair. It wasn't _right_. And there she is, back where she started.

Sitting alone. In a dark room. Static buzzing in her ears, and she thinks she imagines a voice through the white noise. Telling her to pull at her hair. Urging her to scratch at her skin. Welcoming her bloodcurdling howl with open arms into the void. Yes, maybe she was going crazy. Slowly being driven insane by her entrapment. By the unfairness of it all. But in the end, this was her reality. This was how she lived, from the very beginning, if one could even call it living.

No. This wasn't a life at all...

**-—-**

**Thank you so much for reading! Comments and feedback are always appreciated :)**

**\- TopazStars **


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